On this day: August 5

2012: White supremacist Wade Michael Page fatally shoots six people and wounds four more at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. He ultimately committed suicide by shooting himself in the head after being shot in the stomach by a responding police officer.

2010: A cave-in at a copper-gold mine near Copiapó, Chile, leaves 33 miners trapped about 2,300 feet below ground. All of them survived for a record 69 days before their rescue on Oct. 13, 2010, via a winching operation that lasted nearly 24 hours.

2010: By a vote of 63-37, the U.S. Senate confirms Elena Kagan as the Supreme Court's 112th justice and the fourth woman in its history. She was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts in a private ceremony on Aug. 7, 2010.

2009: North Korean leader Kim Jong-il pardons two American journalists, Euna Lee (bottom) and Laura Ling (top), who had been arrested and imprisoned for illegal entry into the country earlier in the year. The move came a day after former U.S. President Bill Clinton had arrived in North Korea on a publicly unannounced visit seeking their release.

2002: Francis "Chick" Hearn, the longtime play-by-play announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers, dies at age 85 in Northridge, California, from injuries he suffered in a fall at home three days earlier. Hearn invented phrases such as "slam dunk," "air ball" and "no harm, no foul," and broadcasted 3,338 consecutive Lakers games from 1965 to 2001.

2000: English actor Alec Guinness, best known for his roles in movies such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Doctor Zhivago," "A Passage to India" and "Star Wars," dies of liver cancer at age 86 in Midhurst, West Sussex, England. Guinness won an Academy Award for Best Actor for "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and was also nominated for Oscars his acting roles in "The Lavender Hill Mob," "Star Wars" and "Little Dorrit" as well as for the screenplay for 1958's "The Horse's Mouth."

1999: Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hits his 500th career home run, in the process setting a record for reaching the mark in the fewest at-bats (5,487). He would hit a total of 583 in his career before retiring in 2001.

1991: Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown dies of complications from pneumonia at age 82 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Brown was the first coach of the Cleveland Browns, a team named after him, and later played a role in founding the Cincinnati Bengals. His teams won seven league championships in a professional coaching career spanning 25 seasons. He also coached Ohio State University to its first national championship in 1942.

1986: Steve Carlton of the San Francisco Giants strikes out Cincinnati Reds center fielder Eric Davis to become the second pitcher to reach 4,000 career strikeouts, joining Nolan Ryan. Carlton would end up striking out a total of 4,136 before retiring in 1988.

1984: Welsh actor Richard Burton, best known for his Oscar-nominated roles in "My Cousin Rachel," "The Robe," "Becket," "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (pictured), "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," "Anne of the Thousand Days" and "Equus," dies of brain hemorrhage at age 58 in Céligny, Switzerland. He was also well known for his relationship with actress Elizabeth Taylor, whom he was married to two separate times in the 1960s and '70s.

1983: The comedy-drama movie "Risky Business," starring Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay, opens in theaters. The film became a hit, making more than $63 million at the box office, and launched Cruise to stardom.

1981: Two days after ordering striking air-traffic controllers to return to work, U.S. President Ronald Reagan fires the 11,359 controllers who had ignored the order and bans them from federal service for life. It would take the Federal Aviation Administration 10 years before the overall staffing levels returned to normal.

1966: The Beatles album "Revolver" is released. The single "Eleanor Rigby" was released as a double A-side, with "Yellow Submarine," concurrently with the album. The album would reach No. 1 in both the United Kingdom and United States.

1964: In a mission codenamed Operation Pierce Arrow, American aircraft from the carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation (pictured here) bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes against U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.

1964: Adam Yauch, the gravelly-voiced Beastie Boys rapper known as MCA, is born Brooklyn, New York. Besides his work as a rapper and songwriter, Yauch was also known for founding Oscilloscope Laboratories, an independent film production and distribution company based in New York City. Shortly before his May 4, 2012, death from salivary gland cancer, the Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1963: The Limited Test Ban Treaty is signed by the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The treaty banned nuclear tests in space, underwater and in the atmosphere.

1962: Actress Marilyn Monroe, the actress and model who became a major sex symbol during the 1950s and early 1960s, dies from an overdose of barbiturates at age 36 in Los Angeles, California. Some of her best known movies include "All About Eve," "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," "How to Marry a Millionaire," "The Seven Year Itch," "Bus Stop" and "Some Like it Hot" (pictured).

1962: Nelson Mandela is arrested near Howick, South Africa. He would not be released for nearly 30 years. Originally charged with inciting workers' strikes and leaving the country without permission, he was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison later in 1962. The following year he was put on trial for four counts of sabotage and conspiracy to violently overthrow the government. After being found guilty of all four charges, he was sentenced to life in prison, but was released on Feb. 11, 1990.

1962: Basketball Hall of Fame center Patrick Ewing, who played most of his career with the New York Knicks and won Olympic gold medals in 1984 and 1992, is born in Kingston, Jamaica. He's seen here in 2012.

1961: Actress Tawny Kitaen, who first became famous for appearing in several music videos by the hard rock band Whitesnake, is born Julie E. Kitaen in San Diego, California. She also starred in the 1984 comedy "Bachelor Party" alongside Tom Hanks and in the 1986 horror movie "Witchboard."

1961: Actress Janet McTeer, a two-time Oscar nominee for her roles in the movies "Tumbleweeds" and "Albert Nobbs," is born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, England. She's also appeared in the movies "Waking the Dead," "Tideland" and "The Woman in Black," and alongside her "Albert Nobbs" co-star Glenn Close in the TV series "Damages."

1957: The music-performance show "Bandstand," which had run locally in Philadelphia since September 1952, goes nationwide, debuting on ABC as the renamed "American Bandstand." Hosted by Dick Clark from 1956 until shortly before it ended, the show would run until 1989.

1956: Actress Maureen McCormick, best known for playing Marcia Brady on the sitcom "The Brady Bunch," is born in Encino, California.

1955: Carmen Miranda, the Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress, and film star who was popular in the 1940s and 1950s, dies of a heart attack at age 46 in Beverly Hills, California. Miranda, who made a total of 14 Hollywood movies, is most often associated with her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie "The Gang's All Here."

1953: The drama "From Here to Eternity," starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed, premieres in New York City. The film won eight Academy Awards out of 13 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor (Sinatra) and Supporting Actress (Reed).

1949: A 6.8-magnitude earthquake strikes southeast of the capital city of Ambato, Ecuador, destroying 50 towns and killing more than 5,000.

1945: Actress Loni Anderson, best known for the role of Jennifer Marlowe on the sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati," is born in St. Paul, Minnesota.

1944: The Nazis begin a week-long massacre of anywhere between 40,000 and 100,000 civilians and prisoners of war in Wola, Poland.

1937: Ice hockey player and coach Herb Brooks, who coached the U.S. Olympic hockey team to a gold medal in 1980, including a victory over the heavily favored Soviet Union known as the "Miracle on Ice," is born in St. Paul, Minnesota. Brooks would go on to coach multiple NHL teams, as well as the French hockey team at the 1998 Winter Olympics, and ultimately returned to coach the U.S. men's team to a silver medal at the 2002 games in Salt Lake City. Seen here in 1983 when he was the head coach of the New York Rangers, he died at age 66 in a single-car accident on Aug. 11, 2003.

1930: Neil Armstrong, the pilot, engineer and astronaut who became the first person to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, is born in Wapakoneta, Ohio. He died at age 82 on Aug. 25, 2012, after complications from coronary artery bypass surgery.

1926: Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes in a sealed casket submerged in the swimming pool of New York's Hotel Shelton before escaping.

1924: Harold Gray's comic strip "Little Orphan Annie" debuts in a test run in New York's Daily News. After positive reader response, it began appearing as a Sunday strip in the Chicago Tribune on November 2 and as a daily strip on November 10. It was soon after offered for syndication.

1921: The cartoon "On the Road to Moscow," by Rollin Kirby, is published in the New York World. It would become the first cartoon to win a Pulitzer Prize.

1914: The world's first electric traffic signal is put into place on the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in Cleveland, Ohio. The traffic signals were red and green lights on street-corner poles, wired to a manually operated switch housed inside a control booth beside the road.

1906: Film director, screenwriter and actor John Huston, best known for directing movies such as "The Maltese Falcon," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "Key Largo," "The Asphalt Jungle," "The African Queen" and "Prizzi's Honor," is born in Nevada, Missouri. During a career that spanned nearly 50 years, Huston received 15 Oscar nominations, winning a total of two for directing and writing "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," and directed both his father, Walter Huston, and daughter, Anjelica Huston, to Oscar wins in different films. He died of emphysema at age 81 on Aug. 28, 1987.

1884: The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island (now Liberty Island) in New York Harbor.

1862: Joseph Merrick, who had severe deformities and would be exhibited as a human curiosity named the "Elephant Man," is born in Leicester, England. Merrick became well known in London society after he went to live at London Hospital in 1886. His life would become the subject of the play "The Elephant Man" in 1979 and a movie adaptation of the same name in 1980.

1861: Seeking to help fund the Civil War, the United States government levies the first income tax as part of the Revenue Act of 1861, taxing all incomes over $800 at a 3-percent rate. Lacking an effective enforcement mechanism, the income tax provision would be repealed in 1862 and replaced with a more expansive bill in the Revenue Act of 1862.

1620: The Mayflower departs from Southampton, England, with Pilgrims bound for the New World. They would arrive at what today is called Cape Cod in November 1620.

1583: Sir Humphrey Gilbert establishes the first English colony in North America, at what is now St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

1305: William Wallace, who led the Scottish resistance against England, is captured by the English near Glasgow. He was then transported to London, where he was tried and ultimately executed on Aug. 23, 1305.

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